Silent on Wetlands
The Washington Post
Monday, January 21, 2002; Page A16
AS SECRETARY OF the interior, Gale Norton
presides over agencies with wide-ranging
and sometimes conflicting missions, from
saving endangered species to issuing permits
for mining and drilling on federal land.
She says she's committed to protecting the
environment and can balance that with an
expanded effort to develop oil, gas and coal
resources.
But she sent a different message with the
way her department handled its response to an
important set of proposed Army Corps of
Engineers rules involving wetlands.
The Corps is the chief regulator of the
vital acreage that provides food and breeding
grounds for wildlife, protects water quality
by filtering impurities and helps to control
flooding.
Draining or filling wetland acres requires
a permit from the engineers, who are supposed
to make sure the activity doesn't harm the
environment.
The Fish and Wildlife Service objected sharply
to some changes the Corps proposed to some permit requirements.
Its biologists warned that
the changes could result in "tremendous
destruction of aquatic and
terrestrial habitats."
Interior's Office of Surface Mining took a
different view of proposed changes involving
mining operations' effect on wetlands. The
two agencies worked out a compromise just before
the Corps' deadline, but top Interior aides didn't
think it was ready to submit. The rules became
final without the department weighing in formally on
the concerns raised by its agencies.
The Corps argued from the beginning that
its proposals still would protect the environment.
Even without comments from Fish and Wildlife,
the proposals were modified in the end, though
not to the extent environmentalists wanted. But
the whole scenario raises questions about how
strongly the Interior Department will speak for environmental
concerns, particularly when, as is almost always the case, they
compete with other interests.
A spokesman for Secretary Norton blamed the failure
in this instance on Congress: Because key appointees
haven't been confirmed, he said, "there were not enough hands on deck to
move the paperwork through the system." That's not a good enough excuse.
Congress should not delay qualified appointees, but
in the meantime it's up to the folks who are there to find a way to get critical work done.
And it's up to Secretary Norton now to show that, when it comes to publicly
advocating strong environmental protections,
Interior isn't going silent.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company |
